I'm apparently a writer.

Why "apparently?" I imagine my writing journey began years ago when I was writing songs for originals-based bands in my 20's but the concept of me being a writer didn't galvanize for me until I hit my 50's. Long story short (and I promise the world I'll never subject it to "short story long") in 2018 my wife and I attended a play where we met one of the performers who hosted a local writer's group. Wifey-poo writes for a living and she was interested in attending and offered our home to host a meeting. Since I'm the "Lord of the Manor" I got a de facto invite and decided to attend. I hadn't ever done creative writing beyond song lyrics and documenting a disastrously comedic trip to Europe as a screenplay (maybe more about that in a future blog) and didn't have any expectations of what I would create. The group did a prompt where we chose a photo and created a story about it. Being a musician I pulled a photo of a man playing trumpet. 

The resulting story is what I created in the 15 minutes of time we were allowed to complete the task:

    Stardust

     “D? Do you know how hard it is to play in D?” Charlie muttered to himself as he looked over at Gino the bandleader who had just called out “Stardust” in the offensive key. He was getting up there and he knew his ahmishure was slipping. He felt it every time he played and always was reminded of it when his horn, his invite to hang with Gabriel on his turf, called him.

     “Count if off Vinny” Gino said and his brushes flew up to tap ever so lightly to let the band know that they soon would be off to the place where “Stardust” would be created, and they be created by it. 

     Click, click, click, click and Vinny’s brushed hands came down to rest gently on the snare making a sweet “swish” on every turn. Bob the bass player let his hand slide gently down the length of the neck of his upright bass and for a moment he thought of the young punks on the subway looking at him lugging his bass and snickering at the behemoth case he was so gently protecting against the tide of the throngs of people getting on and off. Sure he had thought of going back to electric like his early teen punk days but he had fallen in love with his bass the first time he set hands on her. You don’t get that feeling from a Fender P-bass or even a Jazz and he knew it.

     Charlie heard the swoosh of the brush on the snare and the downbeat bass note and all of the anxiety he had up to this moment faded away as he drew a breath, the muscle memory of his fingers kicked in and his fingers, mind, and body worked as one to coax the opening notes of “Stardust.” As he continued he saw couples emerge from the darkness and wade into the pools of light on the dancefloor. Their silhouettes and shapes going in and out of darkness and light as they sashayed to the music and commenced the amazing feat of combining both grace and avoidance. What brought them here tonight he wondered? Maybe they’ve been having a rough time in their relationship and a night out of wine and song was the thing they needed to rekindle the flame. Maybe they were on their first date and the other music of the night wasn’t right and “Stardust” coaxed them from their seats to conjoin as one. 

     But these passing thoughts really didn’t matter to Charlie. He knew that in this moment of shared music all had, once again, become star dust. 

I apparently (there's that word again) impressed the room with my story, and more importantly, Wifey-poo who is one helluva writer thank-you-very-much.

This and subsequent group meetings awoke the creative writer in me. I went on to start a novel I had swirling about in my brain and the journey to write it has helped me develop more and more of my writing chops. My novel, called "Skimming Thru Life" is currently over 77,000 words and I plan to finish and self-publish it on Amazon this year (2024.). I'll put a link here to where you can purchase it when it is available.

Here in this section I'll update things occasionally with blog posts and/or probably short stories, chapters from my novel, or maybe share scenes from the screenplay I wrote called "We Got This." 

Thanks for stopping by to experience what I write and please check in from time to time to see what's new. Maybe send an encouraging comment to help me keep the faith in what I'm doing. It will nourish my soul more than you realize.

-M